They would ask me what actors I saw in the roles. I would tell them, and they’d say “Oh that’s interesting.” And that would be the end of it.
--Elmore Leonard, in 2000, on the extent of his input for Hollywood's adaptation of his novels

Sunday, May 11, 2014

Jeremy Robinson's "Xom-B"

Jeremy Robinson is the bestselling author of more than forty novels including Island 731, SecondWorld, the Jack Sigler thriller series, and Project Nemesis, the highest selling original (non-licensed) kaiju novel of all time. Robinson is also known as the #1 Amazon.com horror writer, Jeremy Bishop, author of The Sentinel and the controversial novel, Torment. He lives in New Hampshire with his wife and three children.

In my new sci-fi thriller, Xom-B, my character of Freeman is a genius with an uncommon mixture of memory, intelligence and creativity. He lives in a worldwide utopia, but Freeman’s people once lived as slaves to another race referred to simply as “Master.” A revolution led to freedom from the Masters, but now the world is threatened by a virus, spread through bites, sweeping through the population. Those infected are propelled to violence, driven to disperse the virus. Uniquely suited to respond to this new threat, Freeman searches for a cure, but instead he finds the source—the Masters, intent on reclaiming the world.

Throughout writing, I pictured Jude Law as Freeman. Law has shown a wide range of emotion from the determination in Enemy at the Gates to the gentle quiet of the father in Hugo. I think he’d be perfect for the growth arc Freeman experiences in Xom-B, as he progresses from wide-eyed wonder at the world to a determined freedom-fighter.

For Freeman’s companion and bodyguard, Heap, who we don’t really see because of his armor, I’d like to see Karl Urban. He’s capable of far more than the role would allow him, but he’s definitely demonstrated how well he can exude menace when we could see so little of him, in the vastly underrated Dredd film from 2012.

I think J. J. Abrams would be my director of choice. He’s shown he can do sci-fi and action, but can also capture youthful exuberance, as in Super 8. I’d want to write the screenplay myself, of course, but if not me then maybe Duncan Jones and Nathan Parker, who wrote Moon from 2009, another excellent and underrated film. They managed to layer on the tension toward the end of the movie, and even though it didn’t have the big budget action scenes, I think they’d do Xom-B justice as far as tone goes.

“Compared to a novel, a film is like an economy pizza where there are no olives, no ham, no anchovies, no mushrooms, and all you’ve got is the dough.”
--Louis de Bernières, author of Captain Corelli’s Mandolin